by Paul White, USA TODAY Sports

by Paul White, USA TODAY Sports

DETROIT â?? Jim Leyland wasn't claiming to be a genius when he shook up the Tigers' lineup Wednesday. And the Detroit manager is going to shrug off credit for the 7-2 victory that tied the American League Championship Series at two games each.

"You can say I'm nuts, you can say I'm dumb, you can say whatever you want," Leyland said. "I thought long and hard about this last night.

"This has nothing to do with Jim Leyland. It has to do with the players."

The lineup, or the players, or both looked good enough that Leyland will try it again in tonight's Game 5 (8:07 p.m. ET), a rematch of Boston's Jon Lester and Detroit's Anibal Sanchez from Game 1. The return engagement could be a bigger gamble than shaking things up in the first place.

Of course, pretty much anything looks good when the opposing pitcher walks three in a four-batter span, including forcing in a run with a four-pitch free pass to the strikeout machine whose horrid slump caused the changes in the first place.

It's not as if Leyland pulled the names out of a hat. He simply moved struggling Austin Jackson from the leadoff spot to eighth â?? and slid everyone in between up one spot.

It really was Boston starter Jake Peavy who made the strategy a success in the five-run second inning that quickly decided the game.

Then second baseman Dustin Pedroia double-dribbled a double play ball that could have gotten Peavy out of the mess with just one run.

But there's also damage control, a must when you're in â?? and let's not forget this amid all the 1-0 games and no-hitter alerts â?? a matchup of the two most productive offenses in the majors.

Peavy gave up a two-run double to Torii Hunter, the new leadoff man, and an RBI single to Miguel Cabrera.

That's the one worry about Peavy, a former Cy Young Award winner who admits, "I'm an emotional guy out there."

Red Sox manager John Farrell offered up that concern before Peavy's start in the clinching game of the Division Series against Tampa Bay.

"We know he'll pitch with a lot of enthusiasm," Farrell said. "He'll probably be screaming at himself, as we've seen on the mound. And it will be a matter of how we navigate through those two or three situations that will require a big pitch to be made."

Those situations came rapid-fire in the second. The closest thing to the big pitch was the screamer than Pedroia bobbled.

"You're asking for a little bit of trouble by additional baserunners," Farrell said after Wednesday's game. "We probably contributed to the building of the inning, things we have control over."

When Jackson â?? 3-for-33 with 18 strikeouts this postseason to that point -- came up with an RBI single his next time up in the fourth, that surely was the signal to replace Peavy. And Jackson quickly stole second, reminding everyone of a prime reason he bats leadoff in the first place, even for Leyland's "everybody knows we don't run" Tigers.

Don't run? Cabrera stole a base with a seven-run lead. But we can chalk that up to a Red Sox team that took a five-run deficit not as something to claw back from as it did in Game 2 but rather as a signal they'll be spending their weekend playing real games as opposed to workouts while awaiting the World Series.

The real question is, "What next?"

"If it's a good hand, play it," Hunter said after batting leadoff for the first time since he was a 24-year-old with the Minnesota Twins in 1999.

The success of the lineup is measured, of course, with a victory.

Leyland said he wanted to take pressure off Jackson. Mission accomplished as the swift center fielder had two hits, two walks, a run, an RBI and a stolen base.

It was more than that.

The key, Hunter said, was not so much where the players batted but how they approached the build-up to the game, especially after learning via text message in the morning of their new lineup spots.

Hunter said he spent the day thinking about how to approach the role rather than the state of the series and a struggling Tigers offense.

"It changes your mindset, trust me," Hunter said. "Leyland knows what he's doing â?? 51 years in baseball, you gotta think he's picked up a little wisdom along the way. Anything he does has a meaning."

Leyland, typically, downplays any psychological trickery with his players.

"They know I'm not normal," Leyland said. "I don't know if they went, 'Whoa.' Sometimes just a jolt like that gets you back in sync a little bit."

And Hunter swung at the first pitch he saw.

"Guess I'm still a three-hole hitter," he said. And it was just that kind of run-producing situation he was in his second time up.

Hunter's two-run double was a key hit but he finished the night 1-for-5. Then again, that improved his lifetime average in games started in the leadoff spot to .159 (11-for-69).

Otherwise, the shuffle really didn't have that much of an impact. The Tigers had nine hits.

They had nine, eight and six in the first three games of the series.

Let's not go labeling Leyland as Mr. Innovation, let alone Mr. Sabermetrics. He'd snarl and scoff at us if we did, anyway.

Sure, the statistical argument has been out there for a long time that getting the most at-bats for your best hitters is the optimum batting order.

But sometimes it's just change that's the necessity. Yes, the Tigers scored seven runs. The lineup shuffle? Or just a good offense creeping back toward statistical norms against a pitcher who wasn't sharp?

Remember, the Toronto Blue Jays did the same thing this summer when their leadoff man, Jose Reyes, got hurt. Manager John Gibbons just moved everyone else up, which put slugger Jose Bautista in the No. 2 spot, which is where Cabrera was Wednesday for the Tigers. And it's well-documented how miserably the Blue Jays' season went.

"Hey, you know, postseason, let's try something," Leyland said before the game. "And I will be willing to answer the questions after the game."